BrazilUAE banking and finance educators sign MoU with PwC's Academy ME
The Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies has formed a strategic partnership with PwC's Academy ME – the business education unit of PwC Middle East – to deliver courses on Fintech, Blockchain and Data Analytics.
The Emirates Institute for Banking and Financial Studies – EIBFS, an education and training organisation for the banking and financial services sectors in the UAE – has signed a strategic agreement with PwC Middle East’s educational wing, PwC Academy ME, to collaborate on delivering new professional certificate courses in the fields of Fintech, Blockchain and Data Analytics.
According to EIBFS, the new offerings form part of the organisation’s strategic initiatives to develop future skill-sets for the local banking and finance industry. “We have conducted a holistic industry-driven multi-stage learning need analysis with an emphasis on techno-functional skills in order to prepare UAE nationals for a disruptive digital era,” said EIBFS General Manager Jamal Al Jassmi.
Established in 1983, with state of the art campuses in Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and serving more than 26,000 trainees across a roster of 885 training programmes last year, EIBFS in its mission statement seeks to contribute towards emiratisation, promote scientific research, and upgrade and disseminate specialised knowledge in the banking and finance sector, in line with nation’s Vision 2021 agenda.
“Our strategic partnership with PwC’s Academy targets fintech, blockchain and data analytics to enhance future skills and aptitudes that bank employees have to adopt,” added Al Jassmi, who signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at an EIBFS Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting together with PwC partner and Middle East Academy lead Amanda Line, a former ICAEW Chartered Accountant of the Year.
Line – who established the Middle East office of the ICAEW (the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, one of the world’s leading professional bodies for the accountancy and finance industry with over 150,000 members worldwide) – now leads a fast-growing PwC Academy unit which today has branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Riyadh, Muscat, Doha, Beirut and Amman.
Originally established in Europe nearly 20 years ago, PwC’s Middle East Academy is now part of a network of more than forty such institutions the Big Four professional services firm operates across the globe – locally offering a range of courses across three primary faculties; Finance and Tax, HR and Leadership, and Digital. In 2016, the Academy delivered over 55,000 participant training days for 15,000-plus professionals and students.
“Our strategic partnership with EIBFS provides a platform for creative, collaborative and value-driven learning,” said Line. With a focus on current and disruptive topics, such as data analytics, machine learning and human literacy, we can boost the success of UAE nationals as well as the growth of the financial sector in the UAE, true to our promise of supporting the sustainable growth of talent across the region.”
According to a press release, PwC’s Academy ME will handle the content and delivery of the three new certification programmes in collaboration with EIBFS, which, joining other existing EIBFS ‘techno-functional’ offerings in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Cybersecurity, will involve pre-course reading, intensive classroom sessions, post-course case studies, and the dreaded examinations.
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